Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You

Mainly, this is a love story.

This memoir of a certain time in Candice Chung’s life does cover a vast territory of family and meals and cooking, but it is more than that. It is a record of living and loving in Covid times, and it is about finding happiness. If you can imagine the result of mixing Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously with Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation and sprinkling it with Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, then you are close to understanding this wonderful book. It is the perfect weekend read.

You may already know Chung’s writing work from her restaurant reviews and articles in magazines and newspapers, where she writes with grace and generosity. Her first long-form work takes as its premise the time after Chung’s 13-year relationship ends and she begins to take her retired Cantonese parents to the restaurants she is reviewing. Over meals – a $40 scampi burger, anyone? – they begin to share their lives and heal a distance that had emerged throughout her previous relationship. Memories from family holidays and outings emerge, sacrifices are acknowledged, and delicious literary influences are celebrated. (The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure/hotel buffet passages are a particular delight to read.) And then, just before Covid restrictions fall over the world, Chung meets another partner. And everything changes, except the need to keep sharing meals.

Chung has written a highly original memoir that asks big questions of its reader. It asks us to stop and pause for a moment; to contemplate family, language and history, alongside the true meaning of hospitality. This is the type of read that will make you laugh, underline passages and truly consider cooking an octopus on a Tuesday evening. I mean, how long could it take? Read Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You to find out. You will not be disappointed.